Tag: West Point

This is a great idea by the Korea Military Academy:

The Army unveiled a monument Friday to commemorate U.S. Military Academy graduates who were killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, officials said.

The monument, erected at the Korea Military Academy in Seoul, bears the names of 17 fallen officers from the West Point Class of 1948, Army officials said.

That is in addition to two monuments already set up at the Korea Military Academy campus to honor U.S. service members from the Classes of 1949 and 1950 killed in the war, officials said.

The Army plans to build four more for those from the Classes of 1945, 1946, 1947 and 1951 by 2023, and turn the area into a zone to remember the fallen U.S. soldiers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

When I immediately saw this I thought the Cadets were playing the Circle Game where you make people look with the circle hand sign and punch them on the shoulder. To the U.S. media these Cadets are a bunch of racists:

 The Army and Navy academies are looking into hand signs flashed by students that can be associated with “white power” and were televised during the Army-Navy football game on Saturday, school officials said.

Cadets at West Point and midshipmen at the Naval Academy in the stands both appeared to display the sign during the broadcast, officials with the two military academies told The Wall Street Journal. The gesture was seen during an ESPN broadcast segment.

School officials are trying to determine what the hand signals were meant to convey, they said.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but this is much to do about nothing. The Anti-Defamation League which all the media articles have been referring back to, states that the white power hand sign is actually a hoax:

In 2017, the “okay” hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters “wp,” for “white power.” The “okay” gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist.

Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League article even says up front that people should use caution when evaluating this hand signal because it is a hoax. Of course the media have fallen for it to once again drive a racial issue in search of clicks. The Cadet in the above picture is not even holding up his hand as an OK hand sign but instead holding in low just like people do with the Circle Game.

However, with that said all said, it would be interesting to know if the cadets were told beforehand to not make any hand gestures in front of television cameras? This seems like an easy way to prevent someone from misconstruing some random hand sign and not have a situation like this happen.

Some ROK Heads may remember the story of the Communist supporting West Point graduate Spencer Rapone.  Well now there has been update on his story, he is officially out of the Army:

SOFREP reported on Spenser Rapone at the time in an article titled, “The Calls are Coming From Inside the House: America’s Communist Insider Threat.” At the time, SOFREP spoke to a former Delta Force Sergeant Major who expressed concern because West Point is the feeder mechanism to put officers into the Ranger Regiment and Special Forces, which in turn acts as a feeder for JSOC units like Delta. By Rapone’s own admission, he followed a communist philosophy advocated by Rudi Dutschke.

Dutschke advocated a strategy he called the, “long march through the institutions of power.” This entails burrowing inside the institutions of society, including the military, and subverting them from within and ultimately setting the conditions for a communist revolution. As we’ve seen in the recent past, ideological actors working inside the system such as Edward Snowden can do a tremendous amount of damage to national security. The idea of an avowed communist subverting important military units and functions from within has the potential to be catastrophic.  (……..)

Recently, Spenser Rapone re-tweeted a post on Twitter which announced that he would be speaking at a socialist event in July as he was being processed out of the Army this June with an other than honorable discharge. This was likely the harshest punishment the Army could give Rapone unless they decided to charge him with something like sedition. With an other than honorable discharge, Rapone will not be entitled to VA benefits, the GI Bill, and may have difficulties in finding employment.  [SOFREP]

You can read much more at the link, but I just find it amazing this guy was allowed into West Point in the first place and then despite faculty complaints against him was allowed to graduate.

Is it just coincidence that Army starts winning football games after it allegedly drops standards for its football players?:

The Army football team and the United States Military Academy have come under fire for the second time in two weeks after another report by The Daily Beast was released Friday, accusing West Point of letting its “most high-profile players operate under a different set of rules than typical cadets.”

The report cites “failing classes, openly disregarding rules and avoiding discipline” among the academy’s football players.  (…..)

The Daily Beast said it viewed internal e-mails stating football players frequently required special summer courses to maintain eligibility.

According to the report, 11 members of the football team attended a house party at an Airbnb rental in Garrison, leaving post without permission, and some had violated restrictions, the report says. The rental was vandalized, according to the report. Captains Ahmad Bradshaw and John Voit are listed in the report as attending the party.

The Daily Beast also reported that senior wide receiver Jeff Ejekam missed the first two games of the season stemming from an arrest in June for driving while impaired in North Carolina. Eight Army football players have been enrolled in the Academy Substance Abuse Program since August, the report says.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but if true I definitely do not agree that a cadet who gets a DUI should be allowed to remain at West Point considering how many active duty soldiers I have seen have their careers ended by a DUI.

If only half the accusations this retired Lieutenant Colonel makes in this opinion piece are true there are still some serious issues at West Point:

The recent coverage of 2LT Spenser Rapone — an avowed Communist and sworn enemy of the United States — dramatically highlighted this disturbing trend. Given my recent tenure on the West Point faculty and my direct interactions with Rapone, his “mentors,” and with the Academy’s leadership, I believe I can shed light on how someone like Rapone could possibly graduate.

First and foremost, standards at West Point are nonexistent. They exist on paper, but nowhere else. The senior administration at West Point inexplicably refuses to enforce West Point’s publicly touted high standards on cadets, and, having picked up on this, cadets refuse to enforce standards on each other. The Superintendent refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses to enforce standards of conduct and discipline. The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire institution. Nothing matters anymore. Cadets know this, and it has given rise to a level of cadet arrogance and entitlement the likes of which West Point has never seen in its history.  [Medium]

With courses like this an avowed anti-American communist like 2nd Lieutenant Spenser Rapone was able to fit right in at West Point:

Even the curriculum itself has suffered. The plebe American History course has been revamped to focus completely on race and on the narrative that America is founded solely on a history of racial oppression. Cadets derisively call it the “I Hate America Course.” Simultaneously, the plebe International History course now focuses on gender to the exclusion of many other important themes.

On the other hand, an entire semester of military history was recently deleted from the curriculum (at West Point!).

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but LTC Heffington’s accusations definitely explain how Rapone was able to graduate.  It also explains how cadets are able to make political statements in uniform with no consequences.  If things are as bad at West Point as claimed Rapone ought to apply to become an instructor because he would be the perfect teacher to instruct a “I Hate America Course”.

Much like the ongoing debate about a US military chaplain bashing other religions it seems this US Army infantry officer should find another line of work as well:

A photo of U.S. Army infantry officer and West Point graduate Spenser Rapone was making its rounds online Monday due to the fact that – while in his uniform – Rapone had the words “Communism will win” scrawled inside of his cap.  [Gateway Pundit via a reader tip]

I saw this and I thought this has to be fake, but this is an actual real story.  Over at Task and Purpose they have confirmed that Rapone is actually a commissioned officer now and going through infantry training:

Rapone’s no mere troll. He’s a real socialist, who believes American society should be radically reconceived to make citizens more equal. He’s written passionately about “white supremacist iconography” and “profoundly racist culture” at West Point, which he shares as an alma mater with most of the Confederate army’s officer ranks. But it is his alma mater nonetheless. While he renounces private property ownership as the United States practices it, he owns a little piece of the Great Chain and the Point,and its history is now a part of him. He didn’t destroy USMA; he joined it, and seeks to change America from within. As much as he can, as a serving Army infantry officer, anyway. “Symbolic victories are important,” he writes. For all the radical flair, you could imagine him agreeing with the guarded patriotism of that old classical British conservative, Edmund Burke: “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”  [Task and Purpose]

So I guess it is okay to promote Communism in uniform now.  So what would happen if someone decided to start promoting Nazi ideology in uniform?

Here is the latest supposed activism from a sports athlete:

New York Knicks center Joakim Noah chose to sit out a dinner with West Point cadets during the team’s training camp this week, citing his pacifist viewpoints and the fact that it was hard for him to “understand why we have to go to war, why kids have to kill kids around the world.”  [USA Today]

Here is an awesome response from a former West Point graduate, Captain Nick Palmisciano:

“Whenever one of these types of things pop up, I kind of have an eye roll moment. I see this kind of stuff as self-aggrandizing. This doesn’t solve anything, it shows a lack of understanding about what it is that the military does, and really only calls attention to the individual. I see them as publicity stunts by people who think too highly of themselves.

He judged an entire group of people based on their chosen profession. This is no more ignorant than judging all police because of one bad shooting or all black people because of one criminal. As soon as you start generalizing people, their motives, their beliefs, you are part of the problem.”

“There are plenty of people in the U.S. that are strong supporters of the military. That isn’t present in a lot of countries, and we are very fortunate. Is it irksome when someone takes the national stage to talk down to the military? Yes. But does anything change because of Noah? No. Guys still deploy tomorrow. National policy doesn’t change.

There is still a job to do. And the men and women in uniform rely on each other to get that done, not a guy who plays a game for a living.

And again, it’s their right. I think both of these guys, Kaepernick included, think they are doing the right thing and they think that what they are doing is important, so I can’t really judge them for that. But the reality is that these pseudo-stands are just as worthless as the hashtag of the day. #bringbackourgirls”  [IJR.com]

You can read much more at the link.

Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea commander provides a lecture on leadership to United States Military Academy cadets during a Comparative Politics class Oct. 19.  [USFK Facebook]